An additional £10m funding from the Scottish government is to be split among the 13 NHS health boards to address the high waiting times for cancer services, with the aim of improving access to cancer treatment.

Building on the government’s £114.5 National Cancer Plan, Health Secretary Humza Yousaf pledged to roll-out a £10m fund for cancer services in health boards across Scotland yesterday. This is a further £10m funding from the 2020-21 package, supporting efforts to tackle long waiting times and improve access to care for patients with cancer.

Announcing the fund during a visit to NHS Forth Valley’s Breast Cancer One-Stop Clinic, which was previously funded by a separate £10m dedicated to cancer services during the pandemic, Mr Yousaf said:

“Despite the challenges of the pandemic, NHS Scotland has consistently met the 31-day standard for starting cancer treatment with an average wait of four days once a decision to treat has been made – that’s testament to the relentless efforts of our fantastic healthcare staff across the country.”

He added that the 62-day performance must improve, referring to the 62-day target set by the Scottish government to ensure that 95% of patients do not have a wait longer than 62 days from an urgent referral before accessing treatment.

Public Health Scotland (PHS) reported at the end of June that from January to March 2022, only NHS Borders me the 62-day standard. PHS also found that the 31-day standard – wherein 95% of patients should wait no longer than 31 days from decision to treat to cancer treatment – was met by most health boards.

NHS Grampian, NHS Highland and NHS Lanarkshire did not meet the 31-day standard but overall, 96.3% of patients started treatment within the 31-day standard. However this is down from the previous quarter and for the period from January to March 2021.

In the report, NHS Lanarkshire highlighted staffing, equipment and facilities issues and said that support for their workforce is needed to meet the demand:

“We continue to be impacted from a workforce position as per previous quarters this is due to staff who were self-isolating due to being contacts, covid positive staff having to self-isolate & non covid viral illness. This continues to have ongoing challenges impacting on some clinical pathways.”

Across Scotland, the pandemic’s impact on cancer incidence was previously reported on by healthandcare.scot, with Professor Ghulam Nabi, NHS Research Scotland Clinical Lead in Cancer for the East of Scotland suggesting that cancer diagnoses and treatment had “taken a back seat” at the height of the pandemic.

With calls to improve cancer services waiting times, this additional funding was announced “to support the running of services in the face of the pandemic” and deliver “equal access” to care in Scotland.

Cancer Research UK Scotland highlighted improving early diagnosis and tackling “unacceptable regional variation” in cancer services in their consultation response on a promised new cancer strategy this year.

The government has said this will be achieved by sharing the funding among health boards to raise the number of operations available, create extra clinics and for “upskilling new staff to speed up the delivery of endoscopy, radiology and chemotherapy treatment”.

Reasons given for targets being missed vary between boards.

Both NHS Forth Valley and NHS Lanarkshire specified vacancies in their radiology workforce, with Lanarkshire noting its impact on the Breast One Stop Clinic. Additionally, NHS Highland has highlighted staffing gaps in its endoscopy and imaging services due to “long-term inabilities to recruit as well as short term absence”.

NHS Tayside’s Tayside Cancer Centre, treating patients from across North Fife and Tayside, announced a new “state-of-the-art” cancer unit in May, using a novel therapy to provide shorter treatments. Head of Radiotherapy Physics at NHS Tayside, Sankar Pillai shared that this prevents isolation for patients and allows them to see more patients overall.

Announcing this additional funding, Mr Yousaf acknowledged that covid-19 has “not gone away and pressures remain” and the “£10m cash boost” should drive down waiting times to help patients access the best care as soon as possible.

Read more: Pandemic impact on cancer incidence in Scotland;Cervical cancer unit to treat patients in 30 minutes;NHS Lanarkshire out of code black     

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